I decid­ed to wear a full face of make­up yes­ter­day, and I was large­ly pleased with the result. I did run into some prob­lems with a few things, and I’d like to keep track of my expe­ri­ences with each for­ay into Full Face Make­up I make for a while. That’ll help me nar­row down what…

Two years ago this month, I left my hus­band, short­ly before telling him he had 2 weeks to get out of the house for good. It’s been a very long two years, full of pain and strug­gle and free­dom and con­fu­sion and find­ing myself. And find­ing words.

I’ve said over and over again in this series: I know you mean well. But you have got to think about your words. Think about what you’re say­ing when you say, “It’s only through the grace of God that I’m heal­ing.” Think about the impli­ca­tions of your words to peo­ple who aren’t like you. Think about how what brings you com­fort has been used as a base­ball bat against oth­ers.

All my life, I nev­er envi­sioned myself liv­ing past the age of 28. I fig­ured that either the rap­ture would have occurred, or I would have killed myself. So you’d think 29 would have been my all-out pan­ic year, but I spent 29 deal­ing with a lot of oth­er things.

Now, with 30 at my doorstep, I’m caught in its head­lights, await­ing its impact with an ever-increas­ing sense of dread.

St. Patrick’s Day will nev­er be the same for me. This whole week has been noth­ing but hell­ish mem­o­ry almost every wak­ing moment. I’m so grate­ful for the friends and fam­i­ly who have spent time with me to make sure I’m not alone and that I’m safe.

Brought to you by intense intro­spec­tion dur­ing a sea­son of trau­mat­ic anniver­saries. I’ve been think­ing a lot about how to describe my men­tal health strug­gles, and I think I touched on a cou­ple of things pret­ty well here.

It’s been a full year since I broke up with my spouse. A very hard year, if you recall. I’ve spent a lot of time try­ing to process things as best as I can, and that often looks like dis­till­ing emo­tions into haikus. Some­thing about the struc­ture and lim­i­ta­tion seems to lend itself well to express­ing myself in suc­cinct and pow­er­ful ways (much like how Twitter’s char­ac­ter lim­it can help focus one’s thoughts).

I don’t real­ly want to offer com­men­tary on this. There is so much I am still pro­cess­ing. But it feels impor­tant to share it, and to share it now. And one of my goals is to lis­ten to my intu­ition far more than I’ve been able to in the past.

One thing I will say is this: it’s a ter­ri­fy­ing time in our coun­try right now. To be a woman, not white, not straight, not healthy in body and mind. Most of my friend group — myself includ­ed — are fight­ing the creep­ing despair as we watch this new admin­is­tra­tion work so hard to make our lives at best uncom­fort­able and at worst nonex­is­tent. It’s easy to not take care of your­self in an effort to remain informed, to know what fresh hell awaits every morn­ing.

But the lit­tle things mat­ter. Lit­tle things like remem­ber­ing to eat. Check­ing in with friends. Ask­ing peo­ple to check in on you. Kiss­ing your loved ones. Snug­gling your pets. Or even dar­ing to sim­ply take up space.

I’ve been sit­ting here for a good 10 min­utes, just star­ing at the screen. Occa­sion­al­ly typ­ing a sen­tence or two, then delet­ing. The words I want to say aren’t words I feel I can say yet, and so I choose to be silent. Much like I have most of this year, if you’ve noticed. On…

A Few Notes

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